METHOD OF INSTRUCTrON 249 



to discover a great deal for himself. " Hans had to de- 

 velop the multiplication table for himself." — With larger 

 numbers and more addends, the number of combinations 

 becomes so great that there can be no doubt they were 

 not practised separately. 



Since, after all this preliminary instruction, Hans 

 really began to give solutions of new problems, the master 

 believed that this was proof that he had succeeded in in- 

 culcating the inner meaning of the number concepts, and 

 not merely an external association of memory images 

 with certain movement responses. But he always re- 

 mained within the sphere of the ideas thus developed, 

 and adhered closely to the customary vocabulary and its 

 usage. Every new concept, each additional word was 

 explained anew. 



It would not be legitimate to condemn the whole pro- 

 cedure from the very beginning on the ground of the 

 horse's lack of knowledge of language or of its use. It 

 was Mr. von Osten's aim to convey to the horse an un- 

 derstanding of the language, by means of sense-presenta- 

 tions, adequate to give rise to the proper sense-percep- 

 tions. Helen Keller and other blind deaf-mutes have 

 been educated to an understanding of the language with- 

 out the aid of vision and hearing. They have come to it 

 through the sense of touch alone. Everything depends 

 upon whether or not the predisposition for it is present. 

 And it was quite rational that Mr. von Osten should 

 have chosen counting and arithmetical calculation as the 

 processes by which to make his attack upon the animal 

 mind, for as a matter of fact, nowhere else is it so easy 

 to bridge the gap between perception and conception and 

 nowhere else can the sign of success or failure be per- 

 ceived so readily as in the handling of numbers. It is 



